About Me

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

I'm sore!

The weather was great this weekend, cold but sunny and dry. I took the opportunity to cut down the cherry boards I bought last week. That gives me space in the shop and it hopefully helps to speed the drying process along.

I like to do the crosscuts with the handsaws, but rip cuts on this scale I prefer to do with the skill saw (sorry neighbours...), It's not very precise, but that isn't neccessary yet, I still leave them oversize Handling large timbers like this is hard work. And I feel it. It's no fun when your body tells you are not fit for purpose. My back and my elbows hurt quit a bit.

I also did some resawing. Some of the 5 cm thick stuff is being resawed for quartered sticks for the door's rails and styles. I also still had some wallnut, mostly sapwood, that I resawed for the backpanels. This is kerfed from both sides on the table saw and the web in between is removed with a rip saw. This went very well.

Luckilly there isn't much tension in these wallnut boards. I have clamped them tight to each other now. Maybe I should add some spacers in between the boards?

All the wider stuff is now stacked up in a spare room in the house. I want them to be dry, so I know what they end up to be. The narrower boards for all the styles and rails aren't so critical. I made sure they are quartered or rift sawn, so that helps to keep them in shape too. They are stacked up in the shed.

I am not so sure about my wood choice yet. The boards come from three different trees. The wide ones are very nice, having an orange hue. The narrower stuff is very blond. And the thick boards I use for the legs and that I have resawn for the doors is pink. I hope everything mellows out a bit, cherry darkens very quickly in the sun.